ARC and PGIF Payments

Professional Growth and Incentive Fund (PGIF)

For 2017-18 The PGIF stipend amount will be $2150. Staff may elect to use their portion of the fund for:

Reimbursement for materials and supplies, that may include such things as books, manipulatives, equipment, subscriptions, software, professional (not-IEA) dues, conference registration, and related travel expenses that comply with district travel policy and procedures, $30 per month or up to $360 per year for home internet access for school related professional purposes, etc.;

Reimbursement for tuition and registration fees, and related travel expenses that comply with district travel policy and procedure; or

Compensation for up to an additional thirty (30) hours of work on or off site. The hourly rate for this purpose is computed by dividing the PGIF amount by thirty (30) hours. The staff member is responsible for submitting a request for compensation for the hours worked.

Reimbursement will be made one (1) time each year for materials and supplies purchased, tuition, or work performed between July 1 and June 30. Receipts are to be attached to the reimbursement form and sent to the Accounting Department, Administration Building, to be received by 4:30 PM on June 30. Whenever reimbursement forms are submitted, reimbursement will be received in the next reimbursement pay cycle.

Any unused funds from the staff member’s PGIF allocation will be received as compensation in the next payroll cycle, when accompanied by a Request for PGIF Salary Reimbursement form. All forms must be submitted by June 30. Amounts received as compensation will have both the employer taxes and the payroll deductions deducted from the total amount prior to distribution.

History of PGIF

There is always some confusion around this compensation package. To understand how it is paid out, it is important to understand that this Fund grew out of the old “Reimbursement for Materials and Professional Development Expenses” compensation of the 1990s. The money back then was only for materials reimbursement or reimbursement for the cost of professional development classes. It was also created as a fixed cost to the district, so the way it worked in the first year, 1994, it was $53 per member and then in 1995-96 the amount was set at $102,600 and then divided by the total teacher FTE.

As time went on we added additional funds and additional parameters to the use of this pool, conferences and tuition reimbursement being two large new ways to access this pool. As the negotiated amount per year for PGIF grew staff began to ask the Association if there was a way to access a portion of this pool as direct compensation (pay).

In 2002 the District and Association added this component by allowing the staff member to take up to eight hours of time for work done outside of the contracted work day. The compromise to get this, which has lasted to this day, is that when accessing PGIF as pay, the District deducts the employer’s payroll taxes as well as the employee’s payroll taxes. As a result, in keeping PGIF as a fixed cost for the district and also to allow staff to get the full amount when using the PGIF for expense reimbursement, you will see a larger reduction than normal when you take this benefit as pay. Currently the way the district pays PGIF as compensation is to take the negotiated total amount and divide it by 30 hours. The fixed amount for each full-time staff member is $2150 but you will see on the form, if you take it for pay, the amount posted to your paycheck is $1741.80 ($58.06 X 30 hrs.). The $408.20 is the District Payroll taxes on the $2150.